Update 02/'09

As promised earlier, another update to start the month with.
I know, I'm a few days late, but here goes!

There's a lot of progression on CarMa!
I'll highlight a few lines from the changelog without violating my NDA

We've been working hard to optimize the application to start the list with.
To optimize CarMa we use a 800mhz/512mb system for reference.
If we can achieve the experience from modern desktops with these specs, we're happy.
To monitor this we use app-profilers, these tools help us to find slow parts in CarMa.
A lot of core and rendering subsystems have been redesigned already, these bottlenecks
weren't noticed on the desktops. To give you a small early figure, CarMa uses less than
64mb when running with a database of 15.500 songs and about 10 screens.

The skin is based on a set of XML files and images. The images can be gif/jpg/tiff/png,
although png is preferred due to the alpha channel. Since the last update, we optimized
and cleaned the XML structure, the loading performance improved a bit in the end.

NoTec is optimizing his CarMa skin, he really has an eye for detail and great interface
elements. Due to his input, masking is also available for some elements!
While work was being done on the graphics rendering, we also improved the loading times
between screens greatly using a filecache.

CarMa already supports 3 plugin audio-engines! BASS, fmod and Winamp!
These 3 players support common features like volume control and equalizers.
Visualizations are also supported, but work has to be done on this part yet.

Multi-playlists. We implemented in an easy way, but making playlists isn't
the only way to listen to your music collection. We will tell more about this later.
CarMa will store the last -configurable amount- playlists. As soon as you select
another artist/album/genre/etc, it will automatically insert a new playlist and fill it with
your current selection. The newest list will always be the first, this way, if you
don't use multiple playlists, you aren't forced to use it either, just use it as you would
switch CD's!

Comfort. We want the user to have a smooth experience using CarMa.
This means CarMa has some comfort-features ofcourse. I will not go into great detail,
but you could expect quick fade-in/out's on pausing/skipping songs, auto-brightness
adjustments, etc. These features can be configured from the settings application.
All features will give you a very smooth experience without headaches!

And now some screenshots! Ack! We have still to make some.
We'll post them later in the 2nd post-position!
So come back often!

Comment

Just wanted to post a quick screen grab of our alternative view options for when your music/playlist is playing. A screen that will show the album cover of the song playing as well as the song information/rating. Clicking any of these options will bring you to that selection in your library, such as that album or artists songs. Below that are the next 3 songs of your playlist. Enjoy!

Side note is that all of these buttons you see will eventually have icons instead of text. Icons will be one of the last things we work on. You can also preview the tabulated playlist concept on the right side. Album covers will automatically be resized and cached into the system for fast loading.

Let us know what you guys think please!

edit: also in this image, most of the buttons are "pressed". They wont all be that yellow most of the time, only one at a time.

Comment

I think it looks awesome, where is the song rating? I expected there to be a heart of some sort under the track time or off to the right or something. Either way I like the layout, I'm sure adding that will be up to the skinner.

Comment

As long as its big enough and easy enough to click it will be fine anywhere. Maybe if anywhere on the Song title was clicked it would change the rating and then you could put it next to the song title similar to the other Icons; unless clicking the song title is supposed to take you somewhere else.

Comment

Hm that's a good suggestion. We can make it change rating if you click the song title there, on the album view page. However, in the header, clicking the song title will take you to the current playlist, so we cant do it there. Good idea though, thanks man.

Comment

That makes sense that clicking there would take you to the current playlist. Is the screenshot you posted the current playlist screen? If so, then thats a quick way to get to the song information to change the rating. How would one go about accessing the extended information drop-down header?

Comment

There are 2 views you can use to see your current playlist, the one posted above, and one similar that is just a listing of the tracks and no album cover information. The extended information in the header is accessed the same way the extended footer is accessed. the user clicks anywhere on it and flicks or swipes it down [or up for the footer]

There will be more on these flick features once they are developed more and animation is fully functioning.

Comment

Hey Includie, glad you like it so far. We will be calling for closed beta testers within the next 2 months. There is no word yet on final release or open beta just yet. But we will be keeping this forum updated weekly with our progress and timeline.